Blast-furnace filling contrivance



2 Sheets-Sheet 1.

(No Model.)

Patented July 22; 1890.

FIGJ.

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(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 2.

A. E. BROWN. BLAST FURNACE FILLING GONTRIVANGE. I N0.-432,'788. Patented J y 22,1890.

FIGS

ATENT OFFICE.

ALEXANDER E. BROIVN,

OF CLEVELAND, OHIO.

BLAST-FURNACE FILLING CONTRIVANCE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 432,788, dated July 22, 1890. Application filed March 7, 1889- Serial No. 302,374. (No model.)

To all whmn it may concern.-

Be it known that I, ALEXANDER E. BROWN, of Cleveland, in the county of Ouyahoga and State of Ohio, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Blast-Furnace Filling Contrivances; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making part of this specification.

There has always been, previous to my invention, more or less serious trouble or difficulty in the way of running blast-furnaces with the best practical results possible on account of the imperfect manner of filling the furnace, it haviiig been practically impossible heretofore to always have the stock (the ore, fuel, and flux) properlv distributed on the top surface of the mass composing the contents of the furnace.

To provide a means by which, in filling the furnace, (either through the medium of automatically-working skip-cars or by the use of barrows manipulated by hand,) the stock fed to the furnace must inevitably be supplied to it and distributed therein in a predetermined manner, is the main object of my invention, which to this end may be said to consist, essentially, in combining with the furnace-top some suitable automatically-operated device through an opening or openings in which the stock must pass into the furnace, but which, either by an arbitrary rotatory movement of said device, (if ithas a single opening,) or by a predetermined manner of opening successively each of its ingress-orilices, (if it have more than one opening,) insures the depositing of the successive charges of stock brought to the furnace-top at such points and in a manner such that the stock will be properly distributed in a predetermined manner over the top surface of the mass of materials contained within the furnace, all as will be hereinafter more fully explained, and as will be more particularly pointed out and concisely defined in the claims of this specification.

To enable those skilled in the art to which my invention relates to understand and practice the same, either in the form or forms in which I have herein shown my improvement carried into effect or under some modification not herein shown, I will now proceed to more fully describe it, referring by letters to the accompanying drawings, which form part of this specification, and in which I have shown my said invention carried out in two forms in which I have so far successively practiced it, in one of which the construction is specially adapted to a furnace designed to have the filling done by hand-labor with ordinary wheelbarrows, and in the other of which the structure is particularly de signed for use in a case in which the stock is elevated to and dumpedinto the furnace-top opening by automatically-worked skip-cars which travel on an inclined track leading from the source of stock-supply to the furnace-top.

As in each of the two forms of contrivance shown the details of construction vary somewhat (as. the circumstances require) from those of the other, though the same principle is involved in both, it will be better to separately describe the said two forms of apparatus. I will therefore first describe my invention with special reference to the form of contrivance shown on Sheet 1 of the drawings, in which the stock is fed or filled into the furnace by hand-labor, and then explain the construction seen at Sheet 2, in which there is an automatic skip-car mechanism for bringing the stock up to the furnace-top.

As the two forms of apparatus shown have certains parts in common, I have in the respective drawings used the same referenceletters for these parts.

Referring now only to Sheet 1, Figure 1 is a vertical section of the upper portion of an ordinary blast-furnace provided with the usual elevator, bridge, and top platform for filling by hand-labor, but having my invention or improvement for insuring a perfect distribution of the stock dumped into the furnacetop from the wheelbarrows of the operatives.

Fig. 2 is a plan view of the furnace-top, showing the overhead shafting in dotted lines, and in both these figures the same parts are marked with the same letters. Fig. 3 is an enlarged detail view.

A is the upper part of the furnace, provided in the usual manner with a platform B for the men to travel on, a lateral extension of which communicates with the upper part of the elevator structure D, and is supported by suitable trusses or beams 0, extending from said structure to the top of the f urnaoe, all in a manner well known. The furnace-top is provided with a hopper d and a bell F, the latter being raised and lowered through the medium of the rod a, lever b, (fulcrumed in the standard 0,) and suitable operating mechanism, all after any one of the known and approved modes.

E are the elevator cages or cars for bring ing up the furnace-feeders and the charges of stock carried in the wheelbarrows, one of which I have shown at P as having its contents being dumped into the furnace by the operative who handles it.

H is a shaft, which in the case shown carries at one end the rope-wheel J of the elevator-cages and which at the other end is journaled in a suitable box 12, mounted on the apex of a metallic frame G. r This shaft, which is rotated, of course, alternately in opposite directions, has keyed on the end last referred to a bevel-gear K, which engages with two horiZontally-located bevel-wheels L and M, each of which is mounted to turn.

freely on the vertical shaft Z, and which acts alternately to drive the said shaft always in,

one direction of rotation. Said shaft Z is stepped at its lower end in a suitable bear- 'ion, onto the rim-like chain-wheel 2' of a rotatory cover or turn-table e, the operation and function of which will be presently explained. I As already remarked, the rotatory movements of the drive-gear K in first one and "then another direction (as first one and then the other of the elevator-cars ascends) causes each of the bevel-gears L M to rotate in first one and then the other direction, (see Fig. 3;) but as each of these gears is mounted to turn on the shaft Z, but is indirectlyconnected with it through the medium of a pawl 0, pivotcd thereto at one end and having its other end in engagement with the teeth of a ratchetwheelp, that is fast on said shaft, it follows that the two geai s L and M actuate the shaft only at such times as they will operate to turn said shaft in a given direction of rotation. This periodical or intermittent rotation of said shaft causes the turn-table or cover 6 to be rotated always in the direction indicated by the arrow at Fig. 2, and at each movement of said cover 6 its filling,.opening, or ingress aperturcfis shifted to a new position, as indicated by the various positions of said aperture drawn in dotted lines atl ig. 2 and lininbered from 2 to 6, inclusive. The said turntable a is preferably made with a circular slightly-dependin g track on its under surface, which rests and rides upon a series of a small wheels or anti-friction rollers g, (see Fig. 1,) the spindles or axes of which rollers are mounted suitably in bearings formed in aseries of stand-like projections on the inner side of the hopper (Z, all as clearly shown, and at each movement of travel of an elevatorcar (that brings up a wheelbarrow load or charge of stock) the dri ve-shaf t H, through the system of gears already explained, causes the said turn-table to make (in the case shown) one-sixth of a revolution.

As is well known to those skilled in the art, thereis always a great accumulation on all the parts of any mechanism at the top of a furnace of coal'dust, the presence of which operates to impede the action of the working or contacting parts of any mechanism employed. A great advantage is therefore gained by mounting the turn-table or rotary top plate of the furnace, so that the track is uppermost andthe wheels underneath the track, as hereinbefore shown and described. Of course it is not material, so far as this part of my improvement is concerned, that the track and wheels be located in precisely the manner shown in the drawings, so long as a circular track be employed that travels on top of a series of wheels, which latter, by reason of their circular shape and rotatory motion, are not capable of retaining on their contacting surfaces the dirt or dust which would accumulate on the surface of the circular track were the latter arranged as usual, with its contacting surface upward, and were the Wheels mounted on or attached to the turn-table.

In the operation of the contrivance so far described (and shown in Sheet 1 of the drawings) the operative or filler attendant dumps his wheelbarrow-loads of stock through the openingf of the turn-table 6 onto the bell F in the manner clearly shown at Fig. 1, and by the subsequent descentof the bell F (in the usual manner) the stock thus deposited on the bell is permitted to descend intothe furnace. After having dumped in the first barrow-load, and bythe time another wheelbarrow-load of stock shall have been elevated to the level of the platform B, the turn-table 6 will have been rotated the sixth part of a revolution, so as to bring the aperture into the position in which it is drawn in dotted lines at 2, Fig. 2, and the operative will then be obliged to wheel his barrow or charge of stock to a different point in order to dump it into or through the same aperture f in its new position, and so on, so long as the furnace may be run, will each sucthe successive charges are lowered into the furnace (whenever the bell may be lowered) in such manner that the stock will be distributed over the entire top surface of the mass of material contained within the furnace in a proper and predetermined manner, and so that this proper distribution of the six charges is repeated as to every successive series of six charges. It will be seen that since the changes in position of the aperture f are automatically and inevitably produced synchronously with the delivery at the top of the furnace of the successive charges of stock to be dumped (by hand-labor in this instance)'into the furnace the charges thus brought up must be put in so as to fill the furnace in the desired manner. There is nothing left to the judgment of the operatives. They cannot exercise any discretion, and the automatic movements of the filling-in aperture f necessitate or enforce the filling of the furnace in accordance with the described mode of operation of and with the result due to the use of the automatic contrivance described.

charges either on the bell or within the furnace-top when no bell is used at constantlychanging localities and so as to effect always a proper predetermined distribution of the material. I deem the particular form of turntable shown, (when one may be used,) with a track on the under surface resting on a series of wheels g, the axes of which are mounted in fixed bearing, not only a preferable, but the most desirable form, since there can then be no accumulation of dust and dirt on the track-surface to impede the easy action of the moving parts, and of course the wheels, from their shape, are not liable to get clogged by any collection of dirt on their peripheries.

It is not material that the particular man ner or means shown for imparting the proper movements to the turn-table be used in carrying out my invention, as any other mechanism and any source of motive power will answer the purpose so long as the proper and arbitrary shifting movements of the filling-in aperture f be effected synchronously with the times of delivery at the furnace-top of the charges of stock to be filled in.

Indeed, so far as the principle of my invention and its novel effects may be concerned, a contrivance might possibly be made in which, in lieu of the revolving cover 6 with its aperture f, some sort of stationary cover might be employed, provided With a series of trap-doors, which might be automatically opened and closed successively by some suitable mechanism, so as to produce substantially the same effect as accomplished by the apparatus shown and so far described.

Referring now to Sheet 2 of the drawings,

in which I have shown my invention as applied to a furnace provided with a wholly mechanical and automatic stock feeding or filling contrivance, Fig. 4 is a partial vertical section of such a contrivance with my invention applied'thereto. Fig. 5 is a side view of the apparatus seen at Fig. l,looking in the direction indicated by the arrow. Fig. 6 is a diagrammatical plan of the furnace-top and filling-hopper. Fig. 7 is a detail plan View, on an enlarged scale, of some of the working parts; and Fig. 8 is a side View of the parts its rod (1., the lever 19, (pivoted in a part 0,) and suitable operating mechanism, all in a manner well known.

B is a sort of duplex A-frame, mounted over the furnace, with the apices of its parts con,- nected by a cross-beam O, and having one side or set of the legs extended obliquely down to the stock-house or the level at which the skip-cars D, which travel on a track laid on said legs of said frame-work, are filled or supplied with the stock to fill the furnace, all in a well known and approved manner.

The construction and mode of operation of the cars D, the wheels or trucks e and f of which travel on the peculiarly-arranged tracks a and in such manner that'when the cars have been drawn up by the cable f to the position seen in the drawings they will automatically dump their contents into the opening of the furnace top, are Well known by practical operation in public, and therefore need not be herein described.

H is a rotatory feed-hopper, which, as shown, is formed with a chute-like extension t at its lower or discharge end, and is arranged centrallyover the furnace and with its egress end inserted Within a central opening in the top plate of the furnace, all in such manner as to bring the lower end of its discharge chute or nozzle 25 a little to one side of or relatively eccentric to the apex of the bell F, so that, as clearly shown at Fig. 3, whenever the contents of one of the skip-cars D. shall be discharged into the said feed-hopper the charge of stock will freely descend through the latter and will be deposited on one side of the bell, as illustrated at 00. (See Fig. 3.) This feed-hopper H is formed or provided at a level some distance below its upper edge with an annular flange-like projection, which constitutes a circular track that rests and travels (as will be presently explained) on a series of small wheels 3, which have their axes suitably mounted in stationary j ournal-boxes arranged on the upper surface of the top plate of the furnace and just above said annular flange or track. vided with a toothed rim, with the teeth of The said feed-hopper is prowhich engage the links of a drive-chain Z.- lhis chain is banded from said toothed rim to a small sprocket-wheel m on the lowerportion of a vertical shaft J, that is stepped at its lower extremity in a suitable hearing, as shown, and that near its upper end runs in a journal-box w, secured to the frame-work B. As heretofore remarked with reference to the arrangement of track and wheels used in connection with the turn-table, the similar arrangement of track and wheels used in connection with the feed-hopper l-I involves the advantage already explained of an avoidance .of any undue collection of coal dust and dirt on the surface of the track that would impede or interfere with the free action of the rotatory hopper. As already explained, it is the inverted position of the track relatively to the wheels which is the pith of my improvement in this direction, and it is of'courseimmaterial whether the location of this peculiar arrangement of circular track and wheels be precisely such relatively to the hopper as is shown in the drawings or be somewhat different.

The upper end of shaft J carries a fast bevel-gear 'i, with which engages a similar gear h on oneend of a short drive-shaft that is arranged within a bearing-box or casting G, bolted to the upper portion of one set of legs of the duplex A-frame, and that has keyed on its other end the rope-wheel E, over which travels the cable f It will be seen that in a contrivance made as shown at Sheet 2 and thus far described every time the skip-car D travels in one di- 'rection the rotation of the rope Wheel E through the medium of its shaft and the bevel-gear h causes the rotation of the sprocket-pinion mthrough the medium of the shaft J and gear '11, and that by this rotation of the said pinion m the drive-chain Z is made to turn or rotate the feed-hopper H a certain portion of one revolution. As the shaft J is rotated in first one and then the other direction, (during the back-and-forth traveling movement of the skip-car on its track,) the pinion m is mounted to turn on the said shaft, but is connected therewith through the medium of a pawl or pawls 19, that engage with a ratchet 0 of said pinion, and that are pivoted to a fast collar 25 (see Figs. 6 and 7) of said shaft, so that the hopper H is turned on its vertical axis of motion only when the shaft J rotates in a given direction. In the ease shown the relative sizes of the elements of the drive-gearin g are such that the hopper at each movement turns less than one-third of a whole revolution and according to the diagram given at Fig. 5-that is, starting with the nozzle 2? in the position seen at Figs. 3 and 5 the first movement ofthehopperH brings its dischargenozzle to the point 2, the next movement to No. 3, the next to No. 4, and so on, under which arrangement, it will be seen, the charges (such as seen at :20, Fig. 3,) will be dumped at the respective points, (shown at Fig. 5,) the three charges of each nearly complete rotation of the hopper overlapping each other, so to speak, all in such manner that in the aggregate of all the filling operations all the charges will be informally and continuously distributed in the most desirable predetermined manner. Of course some other subdivision of the complete rotation of the hopper may be made, and it may be arranged and driven so as to make the deposits of the successive charges closer together, more after the fashion of those which occur in the other type of furnace contrivance shown in Sheet 1.

As in the case of the form of apparatus shown in Sheet 1, the contrivance shown in Sheet 2 may be modified in many particulars without departing from my invention, so long as the revolving hopper (or some other device) is made to enforce the depositing of the successive charges brought up by the skipcar at different points, and so as to produce a perfect distribution evenly of the stock filled in to the furnace.

Without therefore limiting myself in carrying into effect my invention to any precise details of constructions or to the particular character of the devices applicable to one or the other of those two well-known and commonly-used types of blast-furnaces, which I have elected to show, what I claim, broadly, as of my invention, and desire to secure by .Letters Patent, is

-1. The combination, with the top Opening or openings of the furnace and suitable means or mechanism by which the successive charges of stock are conveyed from the stockroom to the furnace-top, of mechanism operating, as specified, to insure the depositing of said charges in succession at several differentand predetermined points, and that is actuated in its successive operations in unison with the operations or movements of the said mechanism by which the charges of stock are carried up to the f urnace-top, the I said combination being substantially such as and operating in the manner hereinbefore more fully described.

2. In combination with the top opening of the furnace and suitable means for conveying to the vicinity thereof from the stockroom the successive charges of material to be fed to the furnace, a turn-table formed or provided with a suitable aperture for the ingress to the furnace of said charges of stock, and mechanism for rotating said turn-table automatically and in accordance with the action or operation of the mechanism by which the charges of stock are conveyed from the stock-room to the vicinity of the top opening of the furnace, all in substantially the the entrance into the furnace of successive charges of stock at difierent points, as specified, a circular track arranged at the under side of said rotatory device and traveling on top of a series of Wheels by which it is supported and the axes of which are mouuted in fixed bearings, all substantially in the manner and for the purposes hereiubefore set forth.

In Witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 2d day of March, 1889.

ALEX. E. BROWN.

In presence of GEORGE O. WING, H. F. BALCOM. 

